Tag: History

AUDIO & NEWSWATCH Foreign Affairs: “Putin’s Russia: Down But Not Out, Part 2” – Gideon Rose, Stephen Kotkin, and Dmitri Trenin [“We’re looking at the history of Russian aggression”]

JRL NewsBlog
File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

In part two of our Foreign Affairs Unedited series on Russia under Putin, we’re looking at the history of Russian aggression and the country’s recent military reform. Featuring Gideon Rose, Stephen Kotkin, and Demetri Trenin. * * * ROSE: Back in 1939, Winston Churchill said about Russia or at that point the Soviet Union, it is a riddle wrapped in […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics. Putin Returns to the Historical Pattern.” – Foreign Affairs/Stephen Kotkin

Europe, EU, Foreign Policy, Security, Visas, History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, NATO, Russia & the West, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

For half a millennium, Russian foreign policy has been characterized by soaring ambitions that have exceeded the country’s capabilities. Beginning with … Ivan the Terrible … Russia managed to expand at an average rate of 50 square miles per day for hundreds of years, eventually covering one-sixth of the earth’s landmass. * * *  Throughout, the country has been haunted […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Putin’s Russia: Down But Not Out.” – Foreign Affairs [issue table of contents with links]

Economy, Business, Investment, Trade, Foreign Policy, Security, Visas, Media, Internet, Social Media, Television, Military, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

Foreign Affairs foreignaffairs.com May/June 2016 issue Putin’s Russia Down But Not Out https://www.foreignaffairs.com/issues/2016/95/3 [There is limited access to free articles] Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics Putin Returns to the Historical Pattern Stephen Kotkin Russian Politics Under Putin The System Will Outlast the Master Gleb Pavlovsky Russia’s Constrained Economy How the Kremlin Can Spur Growth Sergei Guriev The Revival of the Russian Military […]

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How Greed and Incompetence Put Russia’s Heritage at Risk

Corruption, Law, Police, Courts, Crime, History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Novodevichy Convent file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ekaterina Motyakina – April 14, 2016) The Novodevichy convent is a rare glimpse of tranquility in Russia’s bustling capital. Perched on the banks of the Bolshoi Novodevichny Lake, the convent’s golden domes and soaring bell towers have given refuge to Moscow’s needy since the 16th century. When cultural and scientific agency UNESCO designated it a […]

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Russia’s Inability to Deal with Its Past Imperils Its Future, Inozemtsev Says

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
Balaklava harbour, the cattle pier, Crimea, Ukraine, 1855; adapted from image at loc.gov; Fenton, Roger, 1819-1869, photographer;

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 7, 2016) Russians love to compare themselves and their country with others and especially with the United States and to ask why others have done better than they have, Vladislav Inozemtsev says; but in general, Russians focus on differences in economic, legal or belief systems rather than on the critical problem […]

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The Soviet Adventures Of Steve Jobs

History, Soviet Union, Media, Internet, Social Media, Television, Science, Technology, Engineering
Mac Computer file photo

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Carl Schreck – April 1, 2016) In the summer of 1985, a young commercial attache at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow sat down with two representatives of the California computer company Apple who were visiting the heart of the Soviet empire. One was an “older guy,” the attache, Mike Merin, recalls. The other was “this lanky, […]

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Battle in the Archives – Uncovering Russia’s Secret Past

History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Media, Internet, Social Media, Television, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – March 24, 2016) The year is 1941, and hundreds of miles from Germany, Nazi armored divisions gather speed along newly-frosted soil. They are almost within striking distance of Moscow, the Soviet capital. Eventually, the charge is halted before the city by a series of bloody, desperate battles. Famously, 28 members of the […]

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Russians’ Favorite Writer? The Winner is…

Life in Russia, Culture, Arts
Leo Tolstoy file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 15, 2016) The Levada Center has recently published the results of a nationwide survey asking Russian citizens to name their favorite writer. Lev Tolstoy took first place with 45 percent of the vote, Fyodor Dostoevsky came in second with 23 percent and Anton Chekhov took third place with 18 percent. Russia is known worldwide […]

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Russia Missed Its Chance to Be Like America

Economy, Business, Investment, Trade, History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – March 4, 2016) Many Russians feel the U.S. and their country are much alike. Both are vast, they share a sense of adventure, along with underlying lawlessness and violence, and in both, the infrastructure often is an afterthought. So what is keeping Russia from turning into another America — a democratic nation and […]

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Nancy Reagan played important role in improving U.S-USSR relations – Gorbachev

History, Soviet Union, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
File Photo of White House with South Lawn and Fountain

MOSCOW. March 7 (Interfax) – Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has expressed grief over the death of former U.S. First Lady Nancy Reagan. “It was with deep sorrow that I learnt the sad news and I can rightfully say: well done, Nancy! She said to Ronald Reagan: when you quit the post of U.S. president, you need to go as […]

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Moscow grateful to U.S. for return of stolen archive documents, expect such cooperation in other areas – foreign ministry

History, Soviet Union, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
foreign-ministry-200

MOSCOW. March 4 (Interfax) – The Russian Foreign Ministry hails the return from the U.S. of the documents that disappeared from Russian archives, back in 1990s, and hopes that this experience in Russia-U.S. cooperation will be in demand in other areas too. “We are grateful to the American side for the cooperation in the discovery and repatriation to Russia of […]

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Gorbachev: Russia’s savior, or a symbol of the country’s collapse?

History, Soviet Union
File Photo of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan at Table Signing Documents

On March 2, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR and the man who began perestroika in the Soviet Union, turns 85. RBTH presents a selection of quotes about the Soviet leader by his contemporaries. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – ALEXEY TIMOFEYCHEV, RBTH – March 2, 2016) Hans-Dietrich Genscher, German Foreign Minister, 1974-1992: Mikhail Gorbachev opened a […]

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Keeping Russia’s history safe for the ages: Inside a Moscow archive

History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts
Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

The Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents in Moscow is the country’s primary repository of manuscripts and records dating back to the Middle Ages and beyond, but the story of the archive itself is not short on interest. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – NIKOLAI SHEVCHENKO, SPECIAL TO RBTH – February 23, 2016) [Text with links to sources here […]

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It’s official: Native Americans and Siberians are cousins

Far East, Siberia, APEC, History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
Siberian River, Forest, Mountain

After more than a century of speculation, an international group of geneticists has conclusively proven that the Aztecs, Incas, and Iroquois are closely related to the peoples of Altai, the Siberian region that borders China and Mongolia. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – ARAM TER-GHAZARYAN, SPECIAL TO RBTH – rbth.ru – February 23, 2016) Scientists have suspected for a long time […]

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Post-Soviet parliamentarian drama: a view from ‘the gods’ in Kiev

History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

The political history of Russia’s neighbours can be described in terms of one long conflict between a presidential authoritarian tendency and democratic parliamentarianism. Parliaments are the key. (opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Minakov – February 22, 2016) Mikhail Minakov is Associate Professor at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and President of the Foundation for Good Politics, Kyiv. He is also director of the Krytyka Institute, […]

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Standing Up for Reason: Russian Academia Fights Pseudoscience

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – February 22, 2016) A young woman named Nikol looks to the camera, wiping away what seem to be tears of happiness. She has reason to be happy, having navigated through to the next round of the Russian television show “Battle of the Psychics.” Somehow, she had managed to select the one car […]

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Jerusalem Post: Ukraine backtracks on Babi Yar plans amid accusations of Holocaust revisionism. Ukrainian gov’t is facing allegations that it’s engaging in historical revisionism following announcement of plans to revamp massacre site to generic symbol rather than emblem of Holocaust.

Assassinations, Beatings, Threats, History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Newslinks, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia » Read more
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NEWSLINK: “UKRAINE AND THE LETHAL HAND OF HISTORY. Whatever the ambitions of Putin, his interference in Ukraine would have come to little without the country’s charged history of internal division.” – The Wilson Quarterly/Robert Thurston

History, Soviet Union, Newslinks, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
Balaklava harbour, the cattle pier, Crimea, Ukraine, 1855; adapted from image at loc.gov; Fenton, Roger, 1819-1869, photographer; » Read more
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Why Germans Supported Hitler to the End and Why Russians May Do the Same with Putin

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler Riding in Convertible

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, February 3, 2016) In a recent book review essay in the New York Review of Books, military historian Max Hastings cites a passage from Nicholas Stargardt’s “The German War” (Basic Books, 2015) to explain why Germans continued to “close ranks around Hitler” even after it became obvious that their country was going […]

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Interfax: Putin entitled to personal opinion about Lenin – spokesman

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Dmitry Peskov file photo adapted from image at kremlin.ru/wikimedia commons

(Interfax – January 21, 2016) The Russian president’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov has said Putin is entitled to have a personal opinion about Russian Revolution leader Vladimir Lenin, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 21 January. Peskov was commenting on a statement made by President Putin, who compared Lenin to a nuclear bomb which had destroyed historical Russia. “The […]

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After the ban: a short history of Ukraine’s Communist Party

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

You can ban Ukraine’s communists, but you can’t beat them. (opendemocracy.net – Denys Gorbach – January 8, 2016) Denys Gorbach is a leftist activist and researcher working on the Ukrainian labour movement. On 16 December, Kyiv’s district administrative court approved a claim by Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice. It sought to ban the country’s Communist Party (KPU). Ukrainian society has come […]

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What’s behind the new investigation into the murder of the Romanovs

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Romanov Family Photo

In September 2015 the Russian Investigative Committee resumed an investigation into the death of the family of the last Russian tsar. Investigators exhumed the remains of the Romanovs, who had been buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and took DNA samples from Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna. Official accounts states that the Romanovs were murdered on the night […]

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Russia’s future under the microscope at Yeltsin Forum

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin

Experts analyze the reforms and the mechanisms of the Yeltsin’s times to help creating a system of transformation for the future. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – NADEZHDA USTÍNOVA, SPECIAL TO RBTH – December 17, 2015) Nearly a quarter of a century after the collapse of the Soviet Union and founding of today’s Russia, experts have met to discuss […]

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What is going on in Russia? The views and values of ordinary Russians

Economy, Business, Investment, Trade, History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

Subject: What is going on in Russia? The views and values of ordinary Russians Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 From: Karen Hewitt <karen.hewitt@conted.ox.ac.uk> I am attaching the talk which I have given (with adaptations) to various groups of non-professionals who are interested in Russia. Some professionals in the audience, sometimes, but it was not intended for them. — What is […]

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NEWSWATCH Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/Eugene Rumer, Paul Stronski: “Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia at Twenty­Five-A Baseline Assessment”

Central Asia, Europe, EU, Far East, Siberia, APEC, History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace undertakes an overview of former Soviet states two-and-a-half decades following the USSR’s collapse. For nearly twenty-five years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of the former Soviet lands now collectively referred to as Eurasia defied the best and the worst expectations of students of the region’s history. Unfortunately, […]

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Putin’s Russia on the Way to Complete and Proud Barbarization, Regnum Commentator Says

Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, December 13, 2015) Russia didn’t succeed in modernizing itself, Sergey Shelin says; instead, “on all fronts, archaic forms and values are triumphing;” and Russia is achieving ever greater “successes in the construction of feudalism” and the promotion of ignorance as a value to the point that one can speak of the formation […]

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NEWSWATCH The New Yorker/Masha Gessen: “Boris Yeltsin Quietly Challenges Putin”

History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin

Writing in The New Yorker, Masha Gessen reports on the first three major exhibits at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Centre opening in Yekaterinburg. The core exhibit’s organizational principle is called ‘The Seven Days That Changed Russia,’ and it takes the visitor through a series of rooms that recall the earth-shattering events of the Russian nineteen-nineties. Click here for The New […]

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Museum to Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin opens to public

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin

November 25 saw the official opening in Yekaterinburg of a museum dedicated to Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first president. Besides documenting Yeltsin’s tenure as leader of the country, the museum also explores the turbulent history of the 1990s. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – MARINA OBRAZKOVA, RBTH – November 27, 2015) A museum to Boris Yeltsin has been unveiled in […]

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Two Anniversaries, Two Countries – Ukraine’s Maidan at Two, Russia’s Foreign Agents Law at Three

History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Nonprofits, Activists, NGO's, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, November 22, 2015) Anniversaries are occasions for recalling the past and thinking about the future, and they are especially instructive about both when two or more of them occur at the same time. That is the case this weekend when Ukrainians mark the second anniversary of the Maidan and Russians take note […]

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Deterrence for the 21st Century: Opening remarks by NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow at the Berlin Security Conference 2015

Military, NATO, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
Alexander Vershbow file photo

(NATO.int – November 17, 2015) It’s always a pleasure to be in Berlin, and I’m glad to be with you today to address the security challenges facing our Euro-Atlantic community – challenges that have been driven home anew by the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris over the weekend. For much of the twentieth century, Berlin symbolised the Cold War between […]

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EVENT: The Ukraine Syndrome and European Monism with Dr. Richard Sakwa, Wednesday, November 18 in Washington, D.C.

Events, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War
File Photo of George Washington Bust at George Washington University

The Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) George Washington University The Ukraine Syndrome and European Monism with Dr. Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, England November 18, 2015 The crisis of state building and national development in Ukraine has deep roots and complex interactions, but ultimately the ‘Ukraine syndrome’ reflects the […]

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Kremlin’s Campaign against Russophobia Threatens both Russia and the West, Polish Experts Say

Europe, EU, Foreign Policy, Security, Visas, Media, Internet, Social Media, Television, Military, Poland, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Race, Ethnic, Extremism, Xenophobia, Russia & the West
Europe Map

(Paul Goble – Staunton, November 11, 2015) The Kremlin’s revival of a campaign against what it calls “Russophobia” constitutes a threat not only to Western countries but to Russia’s future as well, according to two Polish experts. As such, they argue, it can properly be described as “a weapon of mass destruction.” In a new study, “Russophobia in the Kremlin’s […]

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U.S. professor unveils Russian ‘Architecture at the End of the Earth’ in DC

Life in Russia, Culture, Arts
Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

William Brumfield presents new book on cultural heritage of Russia’s north. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – ANNA SOROKINA, RBTH – October 23, 2015) William Brumfield presented highlights and stunning photos from his new book Architecture at the End of the Earth: Photographing the Russian North on Oct. 15 at the headquarters of the American Councils for International Education […]

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[From 1993:] Russia Mourns Victims of Uprising

Assassinations, Beatings, Threats, History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Parliament Building Billowing Smoke in 1993

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anne Barnard, David Filipov – October 8, 1993) Moscow mourned the human cost of this week’s political bloodshed Thursday, as President Boris Yeltsin suspended the Constitutional Court he has accused of complicity in the violence. Several thousand friends, strangers and comrades in arms filed past the coffins of six policemen killed last Sunday and Monday […]

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NEWSWATCH Washington Post/Daniel Treisman: “Searching for the roots of Russia’s aggression”

Foreign Policy, Security, Visas, History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, Military, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Balaklava harbour, the cattle pier, Crimea, Ukraine, 1855; adapted from image at loc.gov; Fenton, Roger, 1819-1869, photographer;

Writing in The Washington Post, Daniel Treisman of UCLA, and the Russian Political Insight project, considers the roots and contours of Russian aggression.  In part, he draws upon and reviews several new books, by Marvin Kalb, Walter Laqueur and Steven Lee Myers. A generation after the Cold War ended, Russian fighter jets are again probing NATO’s defenses in the skies […]

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